Barnshaws Metal Bending says that it has developed new methods for cold bending rectangular hollow sections (RHS) for base platform support rings that are used as an integral part of the structure of turbines.
Barnshaws can now curve 400*200*16 RHS and 450*250*16 RHS to 2500 inside radius with very little distortion, it says. Up until now, the manufacture of these critical components has only been possible via more expensive and time consuming heat induction bending methods.
For more extreme configurations, where cold bending is still not a technically feasible option, Barnshaws says it can use induction bending to meet the required component specification. To demonstrate this capability, the company has recently created 500*300*16 RHS to 2800 centre line radius, again with minimum distortion.
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